Such sceneries are very common now in many houses and internet cafes. Children and youth are spending most of their times playing computer games. While parents favor computers as necessities of modern age and as assistants for their children’s homework, children mostly consider them as toy boxes. They initially start with innocent intentions, but in time they lose their original purpose. “Uncontrolled use of computers,” the common problem of many parents, is also a matter very difficult to solve for the experts.

How do computer games affect the children’s subconscious and their future lives? Do games with positive effects have an appealing presentation?

Computer games can be grouped under two categories. First are the games that help developing talents, understanding the life experiments and ethical values by using an entertaining method; Second are the games that do not contribute anything to the child’s imagination and thinking abilities and inciting violent and immoral behavior. For the game to positively affect the child’s intellectual, physical and spiritual development depends upon both the content and the duration of the game. This period of playing time should neither be too short, nor too long. To be able to obtain a proper balance in this matter, we should first equip the child with an education of using the time wisely. Children wasting their time for useless activities, can also be insensitive to effective use of time when they grow up. Concisely, children must acquire the consciousness of valuing time. Wasted time in front of computers cause children and youth to get passive. This increases the stress experienced by the children. Especially in active boys, this inactiveness causes an energy accumulation which negatively affects the child’s behaviors. The use of excessive energy by ways of different sports is very useful for the physical and mental development and raising of a social conscious. Moreover, spending time in front of computers, deprives children and youth from cultural activities like playing group games, studying together and engaging with a sports activity.

Many of us complain that our children cannot express themselves properly and are not clear at communicating with their environment. When we ask a question to our child, either we get a very brief or a routine answer. Times elapsed aimlessly in front of computers have a significant effect on this.

We see that violence increase in each level of any new computer game. The game producers consider every type of method as permissible just to be able to attract children to the screen. Scenes which are not suitable for the age form the subconscious of a child. Children who have been exposed to several violent scenes are mostly inclined to aggression, anxiety and panic and they are generally furious and quick-tempered and consider violence as an ordinary matter. Reactions of children who watch violent films and play fierce and crimson computer games change in time and start applying more and more force to people and children around them. They tend to hit and kick others even after a slight disagreement. Being affected from destructive violent scenes, children reveal problems like over anxiety, sleep disturbances and behavioral disorders. Since the causes and effects of behaviors affected by the five senses are not questioned so much in pre-school children, abnormalities mentioned earlier can be seen more on them. We can give these as example: “A three year old child who watched violent films, applied what he watched on TV and stabbed and killed his little brother with a knife. Another child who thought himself to be a pokemon (a cartoon character), threw himself from the seventh floor with the intention of flying. And another child in France who could not win any computer games became epileptic because of having too frequent and excessive anger fits due to the unsuccessful playing sessions.” Unfortunately we often hear such news. In order to illuminate the subconscious of our children with beauties, favors, affection, and altruism, we should offer them alternative useful and educational games.

Harmful games also prevent children to learn their own culture, thus cause a cultural corrosion. Such games take our children to a world of weird clothes and hairstyles, weapons being the accessories. In this virtual world, no values exist except for “might is right.” Furthermore, in most of these games Islam is shown as a boogeyman and Muslims are shown as terrorists deserved to be killed. Children who are seized by the computer games become alienated to their environment. Having difficulty to make friends around them, children become enslaved by the computer and isolate themselves from the society. The only friend of the child is the computer, and in spite of elapsing the time, child still feels great loneliness inside. Hence, parents should provide suitable activities for their children and reasonably arrange the time spent for computer games.

Many bad characters shown on computer games also have perverse effects upon the child’s personal development. It is definite that messages given by these games like being strong and unchallengeable, inconsideration of other people’s lives, killing for the sake of living, disdaining ethical values, despising other people’s feelings, disrespecting the person addressed, categorizing the people, negatively affect the child’s personal development. Such games also impose unfavorable impacts upon learning abilities and awareness of the child. Scenes that are rapidly changing on computer screen distract the child greatly, make him confused and disturb his mind. This triggers a difficulty in concentrating when learning. Besides, excessive light changes may cause epileptic fits for some children.

Conclusively, computer games inspire children that the life is only a game and lead children to think too much about the characters in the game and mentally and physically to be with them all the time. Children playing too much computer games, carry the same concepts in the game to their relations with their family and friends, cause the child to confuse between the reality and imagination and eventually, the time spent together decreases and unsocial behaviors settle in the child’s personality.

Surely, we cannot underestimate the beneficial sides of the computer which is a must in modern age. But the ideal is to benefit from the positive services of the computer and to ensure a protection against its harmful usage. The playing time which is essential for the child’s healthy growth, should be distributed fairly between virtual games and real group games. For this, we must prefer games;

• in which they can play an active role,

• that are suggested by specialists and other experts,

• which can provide national awareness and cultural identity,

• which support comprehension and intelligence of the child,

• which contribute to virtues like sharing, team spirit, caring for others, honesty, and diligence,

• which instigate curiosity and make learning fun,

• which include parents into the game,

• which infuse consciousness of performing duties and responsibility,

• which help developing imagination, thinking ability, exploring and inventing capability.

If eyes, ears and other organs that are bestowed upon us by the All-Compassionate Creator are engaged with only entertaining computer games, then they are being used out of their innate purposes. Therefore, the vital responsibility of parents is to be very careful for guiding their children to use their sight, hearing, feeling, judging faculties in the right direction and to prepare an environment that provides the child a rich learning background and to bloom his mental abilities.

Said Nursi, also known as “Bediuzzaman” or “the wonder of the age” by his contemporaries, was born in eastern Anatolia (modern Turkey) in a turbulent era towards the end of the nineteenth century.¹ The Ottoman state was struggling to keep up with advances in science, technology, industry, and economy. After centuries of super-power status, Ottomans were deep in decline. The Muslim world was under continuous attack by the European powers on many fronts: economic, cultural, and military. People were questioning their beliefs and values in search of an explanation for their predicament. Most people were pessimistic and skeptical of their cultural inheritance. Under these circumstances, Bediuz¬zaman was a lighthouse of faith, hope and activism. Bediuzzaman was very far-sighted in his assessment of the conditions surrounding him, and in identifying solutions to the problems he encountered. His noteworthy stands include his championing of democratization, republicanism, the marriage of natural sciences and theology, and his advocacy for dialog with people of other faiths. 

Backbiting the Dog

Backbiting, or talking negatively behind a person’s back, is considered one of the major sins in Islam. In an incident involving his students and a dog, Bediuzzaman used this term to discourage his students from talking negatively about a dog. The incident happened as follows:

One day a dog found a piece of meat that was hidden in a container to keep it cool. The dog ate the meat and when it could not get its head out of the container, it broke the container. Upon discovering this, some of Bediuzzaman’s students made a plan to trick the dog to bring it back and punish it. When he learned about the incident and the plan, Bediuzzaman questioned the student who attempted to punish the dog: “Tell me honestly, if you were extremely hungry and you find a piece of food in the open, wouldn’t you eat it?”

His student replied: “Indeed I would.”

Bediuzzaman: “And you are an intelligent being. Now realize that this is a dog. It does not have the intelligence that you have. It cannot realize that the food belongs to somebody. Can it be blamed for eating it?”

Student: “No.”

Bediuzzaman: “Then stop trying to punish this creature and do not backbite it (i.e. do not speak negatively behind its back).” It is noteworthy that he used the term “backbiting” to prohibit talking negatively about a dog, while this term is normally reserved for humans. 

Killing of a Lizard

One day, after a long lesson, Bediuzzaman let his students go out and refresh themselves for a while. The students went out to the nearby plains to walk and relax. Upon their return, Bediuzzaman asked them what they had done. One of the students said that he had killed a lizard. Upon hearing this Bediuzzaman was visibly sad and told his student in a mournful tone: “You have demolished your house.”

Student: “The people of my hometown believe that killing seven lizards earns you as much reward as visiting the Ka’ba.”

Bediuzzaman: “All right then, sit here and let’s talk about this. We will try to find out who is right. First, let me ask you this: Did this animal attack you?”

Student: “No.”

Bediuzzaman: “Did it steal something from you?

Student: “No”

Bediuzzaman: “Do you provide sustenance for this animal?”

Student: “No.”

Bediuzzaman: “Was it passing through your land?”

Student: “No.”

Bediuzzaman: “Did you create it?”

Student: “No.”

Bediuzzaman: “Do you know the wisdom behind the creation of these animals? Do you know their functions in nature?”

Student: … (Silence)

Bediuzzaman: “Did the Great Lord create this animal for you to kill? Who told you to kill it? There are numerous functions these animals fulfill. You have indeed committed a great mistake by killing it.” 

The House of Ants

Bediuzzaman was teaching his students near the city of Van. In summer, they used to climb Mount Erek near the city and do their studying there in order to avoid the excessive heat around the city. After a summer spent on the high plains, the fall was beginning and the weather was getting colder. They thought of building a place to take refuge before it got very cold and it snowed. Upon the suggestion of Bediuzzaman they decided to dig something like a cave or room into a hill and make a hole to serve as a window. The students started digging.

After a while they saw ants coming out of the place where they were digging. Bediuzzaman immediately told them to stop. One of the students responded:

Student: “Why should we stop? We have dug quite a bit. We will be done shortly.”

Bediuzzaman: “No. We cannot demolish a home in order make a home. Search for another spot.”

They changed their digging place three times before settling on a place where there were no ants, and they built their sanctuary. 

Mr Ox

Bediuzzaman was being sent into exile based on charges that he was involved in an uprising in an eastern province. It was known by people around him that he had, instead, tried to stop the rebelling leaders from taking arms against the government. But this did not stop the government from sending him to exile. He was transported by a difficult path to the port city of Trabzon from his home city of Van in eastern Turkey. It was winter and everything was covered with snow and ice. It was the month of Ramadan. Bediuzzaman was one of the few people in the group who was able to continue his fasting under difficult conditions.

On the snowy road over the mountains, they were riding a wagon pulled by oxen. At one point, a leg of one of the oxen got hurt by rocks on the road and began bleeding. Bediuzzaman quickly noticed it and told his companions:

Bediuzzaman: “My friends! Let’s get off and walk. The leg of Mr Ox is bleeding.”

His companions looked at Bediuzzaman’s face with astonishment: “But we have paid the owners of these oxen!”

Bediuzzaman was unshaken in his stance. He jumped off the wagon himself first and said: “They are not owners of these oxen, only users or managers. Only God is the true owner. Have pity for the animals and get off the wagon.”

They all jumped off to the relief of the oxen.

Encounter with the Wolf

During their stay on Mount Erek near the city of Van, he asked his student named Molla Hamid to go down in a valley and get water from a creek. The creek was a place frequented by wild animals. Molla Hamid was visibly reluctant. He said: “Sir, I am reluctant to go… I am afraid.”

Bediuzzaman: “What are you afraid of?”

Molla Hamid: “Sir, there are all kinds of wild animals that roam around the creek. I am afraid one of them might attack me.”

Bediuzzaman: “Go. Do not be afraid. Nothing will happen.”

Molla Hamid reluctantly accepted and went to the creek. He came back with a bucket of water. Bediuzzaman asked: “What did you see?”

Molla Hamid: “Nothing sir.”

Bediuzzaman: “One should have some courage. Let me tell you a recent experience of mine. A few days ago I woke up in the middle of the night and I was putting on my clothes. An animal entered through the door. At first I thought it was a dog. It began to approach me. Then I realized that it was a wolf. Then I began to think what its intention might be. Then the wolf came right over to me and started to look at me. And I looked at it in return. We looked at each other like this for roughly half an hour. Then it simply turned and left. I interpreted his look in this way: It was as if it were trying to tell me ‘I stood with you for so long and you did not offer me anything to eat. I will not rely on your generosity. I will seek my sustenance from my Lord.’”

Then Bediuzzaman continued: “As you see we do not have any weapons. If these animals were not under the control of God, they could have easily attacked and ravaged us. But they did not. So, do not be afraid. Every single thing moves under the command of our Lord.”

These are a few incidents from the life of a prominent scholar of Islam and a contemporary student of a timeless teacher, Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him. Love of animals was manifest in a number of stories narrated to us by the Companions of God’s Messenger and related through books of Prophetic Tradition. Let us have a look at some examples: 

The Crying Camel

A Companion of the Prophet, Abdullah ibn Ja’far relates the following incident:

“The Messenger of God went to a garden in Madina with a few Companions. A very scrawny camel was in a corner. Seeing the Messenger of God, it began to cry. He went near the camel, and after staying beside it for a while, he severely warned the owner to feed it properly.”²  

Earning Paradise through Kindness to a Dog

It is related in the prophetic tradition that the Prophet said: “A prostitute was guided to truth by God and ultimately went to Paradise because she gave water to a dog dying of thirst. Another woman was sent to Hell because she left a cat to die of hunger.”³

The Screaming Mother Bird

While returning from a military campaign, a few companions removed some young birds from their nest to stroke them. The mother bird came back, and not finding its babies, began to fly around screeching. When told of this, the Messenger became angry and ordered the birds to be put back in the nest.⁴

These stories illustrate the overflowing love and appreciation of creation that is a manifestation of the divine love our Creator and Sustainer for us. 

Footnotes

1. Weld, M., Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, Sozler Publications, 1992.
2. Gulen, M. F., Prophet Muhammad: Aspects of His Life, Fountain Publications, VA, 2000.
3. Bukhari 4. 538; 3.553
4. Hadith Encyclopedia, Harf Information Technology, Cairo, 1996.

A tooth is created with four main layers: enamel, dentine, pulp chamber and cementum (the thin layer where the tooth attaches to the jaw). The hardest tissue of the body, the enamel is the protective, outermost layer of the tooth. Since it does not contain any living matter such as veins or nerves, we are not affected by hot, cold, sweet or sour stimulants via the tooth. If the Owner of an Everlasting Might and Compassion had not created the enamel of the tooth, which He placed at the entrance of the digestion room in the human palace, as he did, the variety of food we would eat would be very limited. Even slight contact with air would cause us great discomfort, and speaking or even opening our mouth would give us great pain.

The dentine, the hard layer just below the enamel, is a tissue sensitive to hot, cold, sweet and sour stimulants. As a reflection of the Creator’s Affection for His Creation, the dentine tissue is repaired when necessary by the restoring cells that he placed there.

The most inner part of the tooth is the organic part called the pulp chamber, which is filled with veins to protect the tooth from decay and feed it with necessary nutrients. Nerve cells in the soft pulp tissue play the greatest role in sensing the stimulants of heat, cold and pressure.

If we examine the anatomical structure of a tooth in detail, only then can we clearly see how it is perfectly equipped with wondrous and intelligent structures. However, are we really conscious of the duties of our teeth, placed in our jaws like pearls, in protecting our general health?

One of the main entrances to our bodies for microbes is the mouth. Because of this, maintaining healthy teeth and a clean mouth is very important in preventing diseases and maintaining a healthy life. When the mouth is not kept hygienic, a suitable environment is formed for the emergence of even very feeble microbes. In an unhygienic mouth, food residue accumulates and forms a bacterial plaque on the teeth. Using the glucose in this plaque, these bacteria produce acids. It is this acid that causes tooth decay and gum diseases.

Are we adequately informed about dental health and hygiene, a very important concept in preventive medicine? That Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, emphasized the importance of cleaning the mouth and teeth whenever one does his/her ablution and after every meal, grants a profundity of worship to God by keeping our teeth healthy. 

Importance of Milk Teeth

Milk teeth start to appear in a baby’s gums after about the sixth month of age. The appearance of milk teeth differs from baby to baby according to factors like genetics, birth weight, socio-economics and nourishment level. By cutting a group of teeth every six months, all of the milk teeth appear by the age of 30 months. Between the 6th and 12th months the first incisors, between the 12th and 18th months the first molars, between the 18th and 24th months the first canines and between the 24th and 30th months the second molars erupt. Since the dentine tissue is not fully developed in this period, milk teeth are not at all resistant to decay. Since the pulp chamber is very soft and packed with blood vessels, it is very vulnerable to decay. Sucking fingers, excessive use of a pacifier, sucking or biting lips and gritting teeth all negatively affect the development of milk teeth. During the eruption of milk teeth, babies may have discomfort like itching gums, a need to bite something, excessive saliva secretion, watery eyes, lack of appetite, loss of weight, fever, bad temper and crying. In order to relieve these discomforts, the baby may be given something to chew on to relieve the pressure on the gums, and some cold drinks and cold food to soothe the pain.

As nothing in creation occurs devoid of wisdom, one may ask “What benefits are there after the discomforts when a baby’s milk teeth are coming in?” In other words, why are the milk teeth so important? Most of us do not give them enough care, because we think of them as temporary. The space occupied by the milk teeth is saved for the permanent teeth, and when the permanent tooth starts erupting, the milk tooth guides it into its proper place. If milk teeth are extracted too early, this alignment and spacing function of milk teeth cannot be performed, hence the permanent teeth may erupt in an improper way. Moreover, milk teeth provide proper chewing and correct vocal speech for the baby. When a baby develops unhealthy milk teeth, this may cause problems like poor facial appearance, and therefore some psychological disorders in the future. Untreated defects of milk teeth can cause pain, bad breath, difficulty in chewing, disorders in jaw development, malnutrition, aesthetic and general health problems like rheumatism and heart diseases. 

Protection of Milk Teeth

Since tooth decay in babies’ teeth is very difficult to treat, preventive measures are much more important in looking after the milk teeth. Some of these measures are as follows;

• A baby must not allowed to sleep with A milk bottle in her/his mouth,

• Sugar, honey or any other sugary substance must never be added to baby’s milk,

• Baby must be given water after every feeding,

• After baby’s first teeth erupt, after every morning and evening meal, his teeth must be wiped with a soft, wet, clean towel,

• Give a soft learning toothbrush to the baby to play with.

A child must start using a toothbrush after his molars erupt, at the age of 2.5 to 3 years old. The size of the toothbrush should be suitable to the child’s mouth. It should be soft and made of nylon. Children can only brush the front of their teeth. Since the space between the teeth should also be cleaned to provide a shield against decay, parents should supervise their children when brushing their teeth. At this age, a child cannot brush his/her teeth properly, but the main aim to be achieved is for him/her to get into the habit of brushing teeth. Toothpaste may start to be used for the child after the age of three. We must not forget that the important thing for oral hygiene is not the toothpaste itself, but brushing the teeth properly and thoroughly. If these measures are not taken, or if it is already too late, any disorder in the milk teeth must be treated immediately without making the mistake of thinking the milk teeth will be replaced anyway. 

Permanent Teeth

The first permanent teeth are the first big molars, which erupt when the child is about six years old. Between ages 7 and 9, the lower and upper incisors, between ages 9 and 10, the lower canines, between 10 and 12, the first and second small molars, between 11 and 12, the upper canines, between 12 and 13, the second big molars, and finally, between 17 and 21, the wisdom teeth, the third molars erupt. During the eruption of permanent teeth, some problems like distorted development may occur. Genetic factors, early loss of milk teeth, breathing disorders, untreated cavities between milk teeth and a mismatch of jaw and tooth sizes, may cause irregular development of teeth. The dental treatment practiced for aligning such irregular teeth is called ‘orthodontic treatment.’ Since irregularities of teeth form spaces suitable for the accumulation of food residue which allows microorganisms to increase and then leads to decay, orthodontic treatment should be done before the permanent teeth are firmly positioned. Irregular teeth may cause jaw-aches because of abnormal interlacing of upper and lower teeth.

There are different thoughts about whether the wisdom teeth should be pulled out or not. Wisdom teeth are placed at the furthest back part of the jaw curvature. This part of the mouth is very suitable for food residue and microorganisms to accumulate. Because of this, wisdom teeth are very vulnerable to decay. In addition, any decay in these teeth may also affect the adjacent molars. If a positive result will not be achieved from treatment, these teeth can then be pulled out. However, if the wisdom teeth will erupt correctly into their places and do not negatively affect the surrounding tissues, and if there is sufficient space for them in the jaws, it is definitely beneficial for them to stay.

Another tooth problem that seems to concern today’s aesthetic conscious individuals is the color of teeth. However, tooth color is completely a personal phenomenon, like eye or skin color. But still, we must know that some external factors, like tea, coffee, smoking, feeding habits and tooth injuries, and some internal factors, like genetic attributes and aging, may also affect the color of the teeth. 

What should we do to obtain Dental Health?

Mouth and tooth hygiene is an important issue that was emphasized strongly by Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, and the most effective method he used was brushing the teeth. However, after eating acidic foods or drinking acidic drinks like fruit juice, fruits, soft drinks or fizzy drinks, you should wait for about 30 minutes, because the dental enamel will be softer and more sensitive just after consuming such foods and drinks and if you brush straightaway, you may rub the acid into the enamel tissue of your teeth. You can clean the residues of acidic foods and drinks by rinsing your mouth with water or a fluoride based mouth rinse.

Having a healthy mouth and teeth mainly depends upon applying a good brushing technique to the teeth and gums. By applying the brush in a circular manner, you should always start brushing the gums towards the teeth, then the outer surfaces and finish with all inner surfaces. You must avoid damaging the masticator surfaces by applying too much force. Brushing the teeth twice a day at least is necessary to prevent the formation of bacterium plaque.

In order to achieve ideal hygiene for your teeth, you should also use dental floss for cleaning between the teeth. This will help to clean places where a brush cannot reach and thus prevent dental plaque. Also, special mouth rinses may be used in order to provide an effective general cleanliness.

Toothpicks can also be used between the teeth. While they are cheaper, they cannot provide a hygiene as comprehensive as dental floss, since they are thicker than floss. When using toothpicks, you should choose those with blunted tips to prevent any inflammation of the gums. Food residue that has stayed too long between the teeth should not be swallowed, since large amount of harmful microorganisms may grow on it.

In elderly people, due to a lack of sufficient calcium, disorders like gum retraction and wobbly teeth may occur. For people who have lost their teeth completely, because of osteolysis of the lower jaw, dental prostheses may not fit properly in the jaw. During this time of life, extra calcium intake should be provided by following a calcium-rich diet.

With age, the amount of calcium also decreases in the body. In relation to this situation, teeth also become more fragile. Using the teeth to break open nuts may cause cracks that cannot be seen with the eye, which may later cause fractures in the teeth. Therefore, we must never use our teeth to break hard foods, such as nuts, at any age, and we must be careful about breaking teeth, especially during old age.

Ants and Ecosystem³

The abundance of ants on earth is legendary. They live almost everywhere except very cold places such as Antarctica and Greenland. A worker is less than one-millionth the size of a human being, yet ants taken collectively rival people as dominant organisms on the land. Lean against a tree almost anywhere and the first creature that crawls on you will probably be an ant. Stroll down a suburban sidewalk with your eyes fixed on the ground, counting the different kinds of animals you see. The ants will win hands down. The British entomologist⁴ C. B. Williams once calculated that the number of insects alive on earth at a given moment is one million trillion, 1018. If, to take a conservative figure, one percent of this host is ants, their total population is ten thousand trillion. Individual workers weigh on average between one to five milligrams, according to the species. When combined, all ants in the world taken together weigh about as much as all human beings. But being so finely divided into tiny individuals, this biomass⁵ saturates the terrestrial environment.⁶

Ants absolutely dominate in rainforests, which are the most biologically diverse ecosystems on earth. Rainforests are so diverse that in a single leguminous tree (a relative to beans and peas) in Peru, 43 species of ants belonging to 26 genera⁷ were found, about equal to the ant fauna⁸ of the British Isles. In a single square mile of tropical forest in Peru or Brazil, there may be 1,500 or more species of butterflies-twice the total number found in the United States and Canada combined.⁹ In Amazon rainforests ants and termites together compose nearly a third of the animal biomass. In other words, when all kinds of animals, large and small, from jaguars to monkeys down to roundworms and mites, are weighed, nearly a third of the weight consists of the flesh of ants and termites.

All of the ants, composing in formal taxonomic classification the family Formicidae of the order Hymenoptera, contain about 9,500 species known to science and at least twice that number of species remaining to be discovered, most of which are confined to the tropics. The total number of species of social insects is about 13,500 out of a grand total of 750,000 insect species that have been recognized to date by biologists. These numbers show that social insects seem to constitute 2 percent of all insects yet, in terms of biomass, social insects are half or more of all insects. Why are ants and other social insects so successful in the terrestrial environment? Their strength comes from their social organization.¹⁰ In addition to the question of why ants and other highly social insect species have been so successful, it is also important to understand how such a large collection of individuals maintains order and collectively accomplishes tasks without producing chaos. With potentially thousands of individual ants to coordinate, how do they make decisions regarding who does what and when, especially critical decisions regarding reproduction?¹¹ These questions become even more intriguing when you realize that ants have quite limited sensory devices to experience the world. They also have relatively simple nervous systems that process only a limited number of stimuli and are aware of only a few minutes to a few hours into the past.¹² 

What is Collective Intelligence?¹³

Intelligence can be defined simply as the ability to solve problems. One system is more intelligent than another system if in a given time interval it can solve more problems, or find better solutions to the same problems. A group can then be said to exhibit collective intelligence if it can find more or better solutions than the whole of all solutions that would be found by its members working individually.

All organizations, whether they are firms, institutions or sporting teams, are created on the assumption that their members can do more together than they could do alone. Yet, most organizations have a hierarchical structure, with one individual at the top directing the activities of the other individuals at the levels below. Although no president, chief executive or general can oversee or control all the tasks performed by different individuals in a complex organization, one might still suspect that the intelligence of the organization is somehow merely a reflection or extension of the intelligence of its hierarchical head. This is no longer the case in small, closely interacting groups such as soccer or football teams, where the “captain” rarely gives orders to the other team members. The movements and tactics that emerge during a soccer match are not controlled by a single individual, but result from complex sequences of interactions. Still, they are simple enough for an individual to comprehend, and since soccer players are intrinsically intelligent individuals, it may appear that the team is not really more intelligent than its members.

With the growing interest in complex adaptive systems, artificial life, swarms, and simulated societies, the concept of “collective intelligence” is coming more and more to the fore. The basic idea is that a group of individuals (e.g. people, insects, robots etc.) can be smart in a way that none of its members is. Complex, apparently intelligent behavior may emerge from the synergy created by simple interactions between individuals that follow simple rules. 

How do ants succeed?

Now we have lots of questions to ask about the success of ants as a group. How do they govern? Who is the ruler? How do they foresee the future? How do they elaborate plans and preserve equilibrium? These, indeed, are puzzling questions. Every single ant in a colony seems to have its own agenda, and yet an insect colony looks so organized. The seamless integration of all individual activities does not seem to require a supervisor. For example, leaf-cutter ants cut leaves from plants and trees to grow fungi. Workers forage for leaves hundreds of meters away from the nest, literally organizing highways to and from their foraging sites. Weaver ant workers form chains of their own bodies, allowing them to cross wide gaps and pull stiff leaf edges together to form a nest. Several chains can join to form a bigger one over which workers run back and forth. In their moving phase, army ants organize impressive hunting raids, involving up to 200,000 workers, during which they collect thousands of prey.¹⁴

A harvester ant colony performs many tasks: It must collect and distribute food, build a nest, and care for the eggs, larvae, and pupae. It lives in a changing world to which it must respond. When there is a windfall of food, more foragers are needed. When the nest is damaged, extra effort is required for quick repairs. Task allocation is the process that results in certain workers engaged in specific tasks, in numbers appropriate to the current situation. Task allocation is a solution to a dynamic problem and thus it is a process of continual adjustment. It operates without any central or hierarchical control to direct individual ants into particular tasks. Although “queen” is a term that reminds us of human political systems, the queen is not an authority figure. She lays eggs and is fed and cared for by the workers. She does not decide which worker does what. In a harvester ant colony, many feet of intricate tunnels and chambers and thousands of ants separate the queen, surrounded by interior workers, from the ants working outside the nest and using only the chambers near the surface. It would be physically impossible for the queen to direct every worker’s decision about which task to perform and when. Consider the commercially available ant farms being sold. Since it’s forbidden to transfer ant queens, in the US ant farms are sold with only worker ants. Still they work in harmony. They build their nest, they build bridges, they collect food and they defend their colony. They do all these things without a queen. The absence of central control may seem counterintuitive, because we are accustomed to hierarchically organized social groups in many aspects of human societies, including universities, businesses, governments, orchestras and armies. This mystery underlies the ancient and pervading fascination of social insect colonies.

No ant is able to assess the global needs of the colony, or to count how many workers are engaged in each task and decide how many should be allocated differently. The capacity of an individual is limited. It cannot make complicated assessments. It probably cannot remember anything for very long. Its behavior is based on what it perceives in its immediate environment. Each worker needs to make only fairly simple decisions. There is abundant evidence, throughout physics, the social sciences and biology that such simple behavior by individuals can lead to predictable patterns in the behavior of the group. It should be possible to explain task allocation in a similar way, as the consequence of simple decisions by individuals.

Though ant colonies must respond to changing conditions, the response does not have to be perfect. It is not like clockwork, or an army, each unit snapping into place so the whole system ticks on without a hitch. There must be enough ants to collect food, often enough for the colony to survive and grow. The appropriate range of numbers should be allocated over a set of similar occasions. If the colony did not get enough food today, perhaps it will tomorrow. The process results in more or less the right number of ants engaged in the appropriate task, often enough for the colony to carry on.

Maximizing the number of ants that perform each task may not always be best for the colony. A task allocation problem for a human city is how to get the right number of firefighters to the scene of a fire. It may be a waste to have too many firefighters on the city payroll. Too many ants allocated to each task may be expensive for a colony if the excess ants could be doing something more useful than waiting around when they are not needed.

The most difficult thing to grasp about task allocation is that it is not a deterministic process even at the individual level. An ant does not respond the same way every time to the same stimulus; nor do colonies. Some events influence the probabilities that certain ants will perform certain tasks, and this regularity leads to predictable tendencies rather than perfectly deterministic outcomes. The ant is jostled in a stream of events that send it sometimes into one task, sometimes another. Task allocation is not a system in which each ant awaits the crucial event that defines its status forever. Like a twig in a turbulent river, an ant may tend to go in one direction, but there are many places it could get washed ashore, to be picked up and then swept in another direction altogether.

Stories about totalitarian societies, inexorable armies, and voracious monsters are often told as stories about ants. But ants have no dictators, no generals and no evil masterminds. In fact, there are no leaders at all.

In short, the basic mystery about ant colonies is that there is no management. A functioning organization with no one in charge is so unlike the way humans operate as to be virtually inconceivable. There is no central control. No insect issues commands to another or instructs it to do things in a certain way. No individual is aware of what must be done to complete any colony task. Each ant scratches and prods its way through the tiny world of its immediate surroundings. Ants meet each other, separate, go about their business. Somehow these small events create a pattern that drives the coordinated behavior of colonies.¹⁵ 

Elements of Collective Intelligence¹⁶

More is different. This old slogan of complexity theory actually has two meanings that are relevant to our ant colonies. First, the statistical nature of ant interaction demands that there is a critical mass of ants for the colony to make intelligent assessments of its global state. Ten ants roaming across the desert floor will not be able to accurately judge the overall need for foragers or nest-builders, but two thousand will do the job admirably. Individual ants do not know that they are prioritizing pathways between different food sources when they lay down a pheromone¹⁷ gradient near a pile of nutritious seeds. In fact, if we only studied individual ants in isolation, we’d have no way of knowing that those chemical secretions were part of an overall effort to create a mass distribution line, carrying comparatively huge quantities of food back to the nest. It is only by observing the entire system at work that the global behavior becomes apparent.

Ignorance is usually useful for ants. The simplicity of the ant language-and the relative stupidity of the individual ants-is, as the computer programmers say, a feature but not a bug. Emergent systems can grow unwieldy when their component parts become excessively complicated. Better to build a densely interconnected system with simple elements, and let the more sophisticated behavior trickle up. That is why an ant does not respond to all stimuli around her, namely she ignores until she decides that the stimulus is strong enough to be responded to. 

Encourage random encounters. Decentralized systems such as ant colonies rely heavily on the random interactions of ants exploring a given space without any predefined orders. Their encounters with other ants are individually arbitrary, but because there are so many individuals in the system, those encounters eventually allow individuals to gauge and alter the state of the colony itself. Without those haphazard encounters, the colony would not be capable of stumbling across new food sources or of adapting to new environmental conditions.

Look for patterns in the signs. While the ants do not need an extensive vocabulary and are capable of syntactical formulations, they do rely heavily on patterns in the semiochemicals they detect. A gradient in a pheromone trail leads them toward a food source, while encountering a high ratio of nest-builders to foragers encourages them to switch tasks. This knack for pattern detection allows meta-information to circulate through the colony mind: signs about signs. Smelling the pheromones of a single forager ant means little, but smelling the pheromones of fifty foragers imparts information about the global state of the colony.

Pay attention to your neighbors. This may well be the most important lesson that the ants have to give us, and the one with the most far-reaching consequences. You can restate it as “Local information can lead to global wisdom.” The primary mechanism of swarm logic is the interaction between neighboring ants in the field: ants stumbling across each other, or each other’s pheromone trails, while patrolling the area around the nest. Adding ants to the overall system will generate more interactions between neighbors and will consequently enable the colony to solve problems and regulate itself more effectively. Without neighboring ants stumbling across one another, colonies would be just a senseless assemblage of individual organisms-a swarm without logic. 

Conclusion

Ants, first of all, have something to teach us about how nature works. Any system whose behavior arises from the interactions of its components has something in common with ant colonies. Using ants and other social insects as models, computer scientists have developed software agents that cooperate to solve complex problems, such as the rerouting of traffic in a busy telecom network or internet. Another example, the famous traveling salesman problem, in which a salesman tries to find the shortest and fastest route between many cities, is almost impossible to solve definitively. But with the methods inspired by ants the problem can be solved at least approximately, because ants are very good at finding the shortest path between the food and the nest collectively. Collective robotics borrowed from collective intelligence in ant colonies is being used to manage systems composed of lots of robots in synchronization.

Nature is a book to be read by the people who approach it to live in harmony, not to dominate. We are not the owners of the beautiful things around us, but observers searching for signs which reveal the wisdom behind them. 

Footnotes

1. Haskins C.P., Of Ants and Men, Prentice-Hall Inc., 1939.
2. Huxley J., Ants, AMS Press, 1969.
3. An ecosystem is a grouping of plants, animals, and other organisms interacting with each other and with the environment in such a way as to perpetuate the grouping more or less indefinitely.
4. The scientific discipline in which ants are studied is called myrmecology and it is one of the branches of the study of insects, entomology.
5. Biomass is the total weight of all living organisms in a biological environment.
6. Holldobler B. and Wilson E.O., Journey to the Ants, Harvard University Press, 1994.
7. The word Genera is the plural of genus. Genus is a taxonomic category ranking below a family and above a species and generally consisting of a group of species exhibiting similar characteristics.
8. Fauna (Flora) is the animals (plants) of a particular region or period, considered as a group.
9. http://www.savenature.org/images/pdfs/ecoandinsects.pdf
10. Holldobler and Wilson, ibid.
11. Bonabeau E., Dorigo M., and Theraulaz G., Swarm Intelligence: From Natural to Artificial System, Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity, Oxford University Press, NY:1999.
12. Holldobler and Wilson, ibid.
13. Heylighen, F. “Collective Intelligence and its Implementation on the Web: Algorithms to Develop a Collective Mental Map,” Computational & Mathematical Organization Theory. 1999, Vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 253-280.
14. Bonabeau et al, ibid.
15. Gordon D., Ants at Work, W. W. Norton. 1999.
16. Johnson S., Emergence Simon & Schuster. 2001.
17. The pheromone is the semiotic chemical ants use to communicate with each other and with other colonies. Every colony has its own odor. That is why ants can recognize their sisters from the same colony easily.

In constructivist classrooms, unlike the conventional lecturer, the teacher is a facilitator and a guide, who plans, organizes, guides, and provides directions to the learner, who is accountable for his own learning. The teacher supports the learner by means of suggestions that arise out of ordinary activities, by challenges that inspire creativity, and with projects that allow for independent thinking and new ways of learning information. Students work in groups to approach problems and challenges in real world situations, this in turn leads to the creation of practical solutions and a diverse variety of student products. Constructivist theories have found more popularity with the advent of personal computers in classrooms and homes. PCs provide individual students with tools to experiment and build their own learning at their own pace. With the use of the web, the learner can now conduct research, interact with diverse populations, share ideas, and work on group projects. The assessment tool in a constructivist classroom is not a test or a quiz, rather it is the learner product; most of the time this is in a portfolio format that has been designed by the learner.

Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky are two eminent figures in the development of constructivist theories. They share the common belief that classrooms must be constructivist environments; however, there are differences in terms of their theories and variations as to how constructivism should be carried out in classrooms. 

Piaget’s Constructivism

Jean Piaget (1896-1980), remembered for his extensive research on developmental psychology, explains the learning process by schemes (the organization of information on how things work), assimilation (the placing of new information into schemes), and accommodation (transforming existing schemes or creating new ones). The motivation for learning is the predisposition of the learner to adapt to his environment, hence to institute equilibrium between schemes and the environment. Continuous interactions among existing schemes, assimilation, accommodation, and equilibrium create new learning.

Piaget explores four sequential stages of the psychological development of the young learner and believes teachers should be cognizant of these stages. During the Sensory-motor Stage, (before the age of 2) sensory experiences and motor activities dominate. Intelligence is intuitive in nature and knowledge; it is acquired through mental representation during the Preoperational Stage (from age 2 to age 7). At the Concrete Operational Stage (from age 7 to age 11), intelligence is logical, conserved, and dependent on concrete references. The Formal Operational Stage (after 11 years of age) is the stage when abstract thinking starts and the learner starts thinking about probabilities, associations, and analogies.

Piaget’s developmental theory of learning and constructivism are based on discovery. According to his constructivist theory, in order to provide an ideal learning environment, children should be allowed to construct knowledge that is meaningful for them. 

The Piagetian Classroom

Piaget believes that a constructivist classroom must provide a variety of activities to challenge students to accept individual differences, increase their readiness to learn, discover new ideas, and construct their own knowledge.

Videodisks, CD-ROMs and simulation software enhance learning, while telecommunication tools, like e-mail and the Internet, provide contexts for dialogue and interaction within the classroom, the schools, and the community leading to the social construction of knowledge. Students have the opportunity to be exposed to other ideas, cultures, and forums on global issues. Students can work on collaborative projects, which may come in the form of a networked writing project, or the building of separate phases of an engineering project that enables them to receive and give instant responses.

In an elementary Piagetian classroom, concrete learning experiences, such as drawing, drama, model building and field trips that involve hands-on opportunities to see, hear, touch, taste, and smell are essential. These early activities and the use of tangible manipulatives and visual aids serve as building blocks for more sophisticated tasks, such as reading comprehension.

Vygotsky’s Constructivism

Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934), known for his theory of social constructivism, believes that learning and development is a collaborative activity and that children are cognitively developed in the context of socialization and education. The perceptual, attention, and memory capacities of children are transformed by vital cognitive tools provided by culture, such as history, social context, traditions, language, and religion. For learning to occur, the child first makes contact with the social environment on an interpersonal level and then internalizes this experience. The earlier notions and new experiences influence the child, who then constructs new ideas. Vygotsky’s (1978, p. 56) example of being able to point a finger displays how this behavior, which begins as a simple motion, becomes a meaningful movement when others react to the gesture.

Vygotsky’s constructivism is known as social constructivism because of the significance of culture and social context. For Vygotsky, the zone of proximal development “. . . the distance between the actual development of a child as determined by the independent problem solving, and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more peers (Vygotsky: 1978)” suggests that cognitive development is limited to a certain range at a particular age. However, with the help of social interaction, such as assistance from a mentor, students can comprehend concepts and schemes that they cannot know on their own. Curriculum specialists and lesson plan builders can use the zone of proximal development as a guiding reference.

The Vygotskian Classroom

A Vygotskian classroom emphasizes creating one’s own concepts and making knowledge one’s property; this requires that school learning takes place in a meaningful context, alongside the learning that occurs in the real world. As seen earlier in the Piagetian classroom, this model also promotes the active participation and collaboration of distinctive learners. The Vygotskian classroom stresses assisted discovery through teacher-student and student-student interaction. Some of the cognitive strategies that group members bring into the classroom are questioning, predicting, summarizing, and clarifying.

In a Vygotskian classroom, dynamic support and considerate guidance are provided based on the learner’s needs, but no will or force is dictated. Students are exposed to discussions, research collaborations, electronic information resources, and project groups that work on problem analysis.

Some examples of classroom activities that might be used in a constructive classroom are as follows:

Students in a political science class can use a computer simulation to decide on global issues as representatives of United Nations. A geography class studying Turkey can take a virtual trip of tourist and historical sites and parks. The journalism class may publish a newsletter with scanned photographs, excerpts from the press and charts about a recent journey to space. As a final project, a sixth-grade history teacher may assign her students multimedia presentations of civilizations that prospered in Southern America. An aquatic science class could observe data on city water quality and communicate with students in other schools. The multiculturalism class students can build online genograms (family trees), and subscribe to genogram databases in search for relatives and the origin of their roots. 

Conclusion

Both Piaget and Vygotsky appreciated the essence of building constructs and internalizing the knowledge given, rather than accepting the information as presented through rote-memory. Constructivist learning environments promote the learner to gather, filter, analyze, and reflect on the information provided and to comment on this knowledge so that it will result in individualized comprehension and private learning.

This type of group learning will reduce the dissemination of false data, prejudice, and atrocities among diverse groups and help build a moral, scientific, information society in the new millennium. Be it developmental or social as suggested by Piaget and Vygotsky respectively, learning is the central activity for humans in search for understanding the causes and effects of natural phenomena, the progress of social events, and the meaning of life. By using such learning approaches we can better introduce our children to the world that God has created for us, and lead them to think about the miracles that are all around us.

“Welcome travelers! You may enter the king’s palace, and you may benefit from everything for free. When your time is due the king is going to take you to a better palace where you can stay forever. Respect the rules of the palace, and each other. Thank the king who provides everything to you, who built this palace just for you. The beauties of the palace are just samples, not the real bounties. Do not let them make you forget the owner of the palace, and the short time you have.” The King.

Then we entered the palace. There were servants, who welcomed us. We were all amazed by the palace, and its beauties. The servants took us to the bath. They cleaned us with rose-scented soaps, and jasmine oil. They brought us clean white cashmere clothes.

After we were all clean, the servants took us to a feast. They showed us our seats. The table was full of different kinds of food and fruits. We were starving; had not eaten for days. We started to eat. They were all delicious. After dinner, they took us to small houses. Inside the house every thing was made of silk, even the curtains. Outside, there were all kinds of trees, waterfalls, birds, fountains; even the sun was shining differently. I forgot that we were in the middle of a desert.

Days were passing very fast. Actually, it was a palace designed to serve us. When we were altogether, one of us stood up and said, “There cannot be a better place than this. I think this is the place where we should stay.” Most of us agreed with him, but I stood up, and said; “ But my friend, do not forget what we read on the gate, there is a king who owns the palace, and we all have a short time to stay here, and he offers us a better place if we act according to his will.” He replied, “I don’t think there is a king. Maybe there was, but he is not here any more. They wrote it when he was here, but he left the palace, so we are its owners.” Most of the people agreed with him, and said; “Yeah, we are the owners!” By this time, we were divided into basically three groups. One who claimed that they were the owners of the palace, and believed that they would stay forever in it. Second, the biggest group, who believed that there was a king, but they did not care about him. They were just so into the beauties of the palace, and they were drunk most of the time. Third, me, and some of my friends, the smallest of the groups, believed that there was a king, and we had a short time in the palace. Everything we had was a sample of the real bounties of the king in the better place where he was going to take us.

The first group, who claimed that they were the owners of the palace, started to treat the servants badly and violate all the rules. The second group also let them do whatever they wanted; they did not care about what was going on. The travelers in the caravan turned the palace into a hell.

With these thoughts on my mind I was looking at the books of old times. They were mostly history books, which were about the people who lived in this palace before us. I took a book, written three centuries ago; its name was Age of Rose. I turned the pages slowly; it was talking about an unbelievable period of time which lasted almost a thousand years in this same palace. There were people who lived a wonderful life in peace and joy. They were also righteous and thankful to the king. So, not all times have been like mine in this palace. Unfortunately, I came here in a wrong time, but as they say; there is for sure a reason for everything happening. The book was also mentioning about the outside of the palace, where people lived happily forever. Reading this chronicle I was comforted with an expectation promising an eternal glorious life.

I have not lost my hope for the future of this palace. I am striving hard with my friends to remind others of the King’s message, so that they become conscious about the purposes and wisdom behind their transient presence here. I am praying that the All-Merciful King will guide us to His Path and we all enter His Abode happily. 

Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, followed the Arab traditions concerning clothing that were prevalent at his time, and he was careful about cleanliness. In fact, he was so clean that all were envious of his clothing.

There are many narrations (reports) concerning beards, and for this reason Hanafi scholars (experts on Islamic jurisdiction) have accepted that growing a beard is a sunna act and advise men to do so. According to Abu Zahra, one of the great scholars of Islam, the beard is a tradition of the Prophet and says that if someone grows a beard with the intention of following his tradition, he will be rewarded by God.There are many more important issues, issues that every Muslim is aware of, such as striving to have a perfect faith, performing the daily prayers, fasting, almsgiving, and the holy pilgrimage; these are what constitute the essentials of Islam. To say that, “it is a sin not to wear a robe or shalvar (traditional loose pants worn in many Islamic countries) or it is a sin not to grow a beard” is incorrect; these things are not essential to being Muslim.

No Muslim would ever oppose someone growing a beard or wearing a loose robe. However, even if we were to evaluate these things as being symbolic of being close to the Prophet, they are not conditional for being a Muslim. We should not forget that every subject in Islam has a level of importance and that it should be interpreted at that level of importance.

There is another matter concerning external appearance. The Prophet styled his hair in different ways, in order not to resemble the pagans in outward appearance. So he combed his hair differently from the way they did. After he made his emigration to Madina, he saw that non-Muslim local people wore their hair so that covered their foreheads. Then he parted his hair in the middle. He stated that if someone tries to resemble a people, he is one of them. This is why he tried to look different.

Among his Companions were those with long hair, and others with short hair, while some even had braided hair. Such people tied up their hair while praying. Once the Prophet saw someone like that during the hajj and advised him to spread his hair on the prayer mat while praying, so that his hair would benefit from the prostration as well.

There is a weak narration concerning Abu Qatada, one of his Companions, whom the Prophet told to shorten his hair. Actually, such a request is not in accord with Islamic discipline, and this narration is not included in accredited hadith books. Even if he had asked such a thing from Abu Qatada, there must have been some reason for it. Otherwise, it would be difficult to understand why such well-known Companions as Abu Bakr and Umar had long hair which they were never requested to cut. After Makka was conquered there were many people who newly converted to Islam. These people were accepted as Muslim, and their dress and hair style was accepted as being Islamic. There was no demand on them to change their apparel or even their names.

In conclusion, Muslims can follow the traditions of the Prophet, they can imitate his clothing and hair styles; they can imitate his eating and drinking habits. By doing this they can turn their daily life into worship. For example, it shows their fidelity when a Muslim combs their hair to resemble the Prophet in remembrance; such behavior causes divine remuneration. Also, wearing a robe while performing daily prayers would increase concentration and it is undeniable that it would be beneficial.

Definitely, it is very clear that following God’s Messenger in his every act from the heart and such a pleasant intention and thought is very well accepted but he always regarded the spirituality of Islam and kept away from such formalism.

In Heroes and Hero Worship Thomas Carlyle attempts to draw a picture of the development of the human intellect by using historical figures as coordinates. Some scholars take a perspective of history in terms of “the environment” or “the times” and “causes,” while others, like Carlyle, have the view that human advancement was not continuous, discrete and rather being made up of a series of jumps; these jumps were caused for the most part by specific individuals whom Carlyle calls “Heroes.” This is like the wave/particle duality of the “nature of light.” In some phenomena light behaves like a wave, while in others it behaves like a particle. One can write a history based on the ideas, cultures, and mediums in which people lived; or the same history can be written by focusing on certain individuals and following them and their actions.

The writings of Carlyle and those of many other authors of that time, of course, are very perceptive. Carlyle is not really trying to be objective on the matter. He has an idea, and he wants to tell us about this idea; while telling you what this idea is about he uses whatever his hands and mind can take hold of. Being so passionate about what is being said is probably a good thing. But if one is over-passionate, there cannot help but be wild swings in the appreciation of the historical person in question. If we use an analogy of a drawing, the historical person is no longer a point on the painting, but rather a hair of the brush. But that should not prevent us from benefiting from writing of Thomas Carlyle.

Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, has a special place in the book under the chapter title “Hero as a Prophet.” In the book, Carlyle declares his admiration of God’s Messenger, “… The word of such a man (Muhammad) is a Voice direct from Nature’s own Heart. Men do and must listen to that as to nothing else; all else is wind in comparison.” Carlyle’s answers to pointed questions on Islam and the Prophet show interesting similarities to Said Nursi’s line of answers to similar questions. “…For a wretched Simulacrum, a hungry Imposter without eyes or heart, practicing for a mess of pottage such blasphemous swindlery, forgery of celestial documents, continual high-treason against his Maker and Self, we will not and cannot take him” reads very much like Said Nursi’s “The Addendum to the Fifteenth Word,” where he makes a long imaginary discussion with Satan and shows how people are inclined to unbelief, thinking that they are evaluating divine revelation from a neutral perspective “…O Satan! Objective reasoning means impartial judgment or not taking sides, but the objective reasoning which you and your disciples suggest is, in fact, taking the part of those in opposition to the Qur’an; not impartiality but an attitude of temporary unbelief. This is really so because to suppose the Qur’an the work of a human being and to build an argument on this supposition is to side with unbelief or falsehood…”

Considering the fact that at that time the West and the East were at odds with one another, and that the means of communications were quite inferior to our times, Carlyle having such an open mind to the “other” puts him in a category of his own with thinkers like Swedenborg, Emerson and Thoreau. I think when we are trying to build bridges between the peoples of the West and the East we should not overlook these early historical representatives of dialogue; this is something that Nursi has foreseen in his writings.

Interfaith dialogue activities all around the world continue at a fast pace, and more such meetings are being held all the time. Not a single day goes by without the blessing of the hope-inspiring news of peace-promotion events in some city or country, thanks to countless people of faith who look for common values and purposes under God’s will. They would like to cooperate against war, terror, poverty, and all kinds of discrimination in order to unite forces to glorify God’s Name and uphold human values and rights, peace, education, and the family structure. Prophet Abraham plays a key role in these interfaith dialogue activities, for he is considered the patriarch of all divinely revealed religions. “Paragon of Unity: Discovering the Essence of the Abrahamic Messages” explores his example through many of his outstanding virtues, like investigating faith, the willingness to worship the Divine alone, regard for nature, faithfulness to promises, hospitality, compassion, and devotion to One God. This article strives to promote peace according to the words of Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him: “Those who believe in one God are but brothers and sisters.”

At times, one really feels like “that’s it, we have come to the end; we have failed”; . . . when one feels totally exhausted, without any energy to convey messages of human virtue, lofty values, compassion, and tolerance. September 2004 has left so many of us speechless in the face of the horror we have seen on the news about the seizure of a school and taking students as hostages in southern Russia (North Ossetia), and its violent ending. More than 300 people were killed including children, teachers, parents, and other innocent people. Despite certain names and photos being announced on TV screens and newspaper headlines, nobody knows for sure who is behind such atrocities. No religion should be held accountable for them, as no divinely revealed belief system promotes murdering innocents or causing any kind of harm to them. Terror has no place for faith, and thus a true believer cannot be a terrorist. Praying for the souls of the innocent casualties of all terrorist attacks, we invite all people to engage in sound thinking, thereby saving ourselves from the shock of any violence, and to concentrate our efforts on mutual understanding.

An appropriate understanding of the Islamic view of neighborliness requires examination of the main teachings of Islam. The Arabic word Islam derives from the root “salaam,” which literally means peace, submission, and obedience. Accordingly, the goal of an Islamic life is to attain peace and happiness in this world as well as in the hereafter by faith and by obedience to God. Achievement of peace and harmony within one’s self, in the community and all over the world is the essential objective of Islamic teachings. Islam is not a new religion. It is, in essence, the same message and guidance which God revealed to all prophets, as indicated by the following Qur’anic verse: 

Say, we believe in God and that which has been revealed to us, and that which was revealed to Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob and the tribes and that which was given to Moses and Jesus and to other prophets, from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and to him we submit. (Al Imran 3:83)

There are two main sources of Islamic teachings: the Qur’an, which is the revealed word of God, and the prophetic traditions of Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him. The principles of neighbor relationships that we will discuss below are based on these two main sources.

In Islam, the rights which people have over one another are considered extremely important. According to Islamic teachings, God can forgive all sins except the ones that are related to the rights of others. These rights are categorized and classified in a very detailed way. These include the rights of family members over one another, the rights of relatives, the rights of community members and the rights of neighbors over one another.

Definition of Neighbors in Islam

In Arabic, the word neighbor (jaar) refers to believers and unbelievers, religious and irreligious, friends and enemies, foreigners and fellow countrymen, those who treat you well and those who would do you harm, relatives and strangers, those whose houses are near yours as well as those who are further away. In the fourth chapter of the Qur’an, entitled Nisa (Women) God commands us to Serve God, and join not any partners with Him; and do good to parents, kinsfolk, orphans, those in need, neighbors who are near, neighbors who are strangers, . . . (Nisa 4:36).

There are three definitions of neighborhood in the Muslim tradition. According to Al-Uza’i and Ibn Shihab as recorded in the authentic prophetic traditions of Bukhari, the definition of neighbor includes “forty houses in each direction, (right, left, front, and back).” Ali, the son-in-law of Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, and the fourth caliph, is reported to have said, “Whoever hears the call (for prayer) is a neighbor.” Some Muslim scholars have declared that whoever lives with a man in a locality or a city is a neighbor. This opinion is based on a verse from the chapter entitled “The Confederate Tribes” (Ahzab 33:60).

According to Islamic teachings, the closest neighbor is one’s spouse. The next closest neighbor is the one whose door is closest to yours. It is narrated from the Prophet’s wife Aisha that she asked, “O messenger of God! I have two neighbors, to which one of them should I give a gift?” The Prophet said, “To the one whose door is nearest to yours.” According to Muslim historians, the closest neighbor at the time of this question was not a Muslim. From this prophetic tradition, it is clear that when it comes to the observation of neighbors’ rights, it makes no difference whether the neighbors are Muslim or non-Muslim. Furthermore, from this prophetic tradition we understand that Muslims are encouraged not only to treat our neighbors kindly, but also to exchange gifts with them. The wording of the tradition does not indicate whether or not the one with whom we exchange gifts is a Muslim.

The concept of the neighbor is not restricted to those who live in buildings near your home. A roommate in a dorm, the person sitting next to you on a bus or at a bus stop are considered neighbors. The list can be extended to consider a colleague in the office or a person enjoying the fresh air next to you in a public garden.

Importance of Neighbors and Their Rights

According to Islamic teachings, refraining from harming one’s neighbor is a part of faith. The Prophet sometimes used to show the importance of teachings by saying, “Whoever believes in God and the Last Day, let him do such-and-such . . . .” Among the prophetic traditions that employ this method of conveying a message is the following narrated from Abu Hurayra: “Whoever believes in God and the Last Day should not harm his neighbor.”

Another important teaching of God’s Messen¬ger showing the importance of neighborliness is narrated from Anas: “By Him in Whose hand is my soul, no man truly believes until he loves for his neighbor what he loves for himself.”

The Prophet stated that treating our neighbors well is a part of being a Muslim. Abu Hurayra narrated that the Prophet said, “Be God-fearing: you will be the best in worship among the people. Be content with your lot: you will be the most grateful of people. Like for people what you would like for yourself: you will be a believer. Treat your neighbor well: you will be a Muslim.”

Other important teachings on neighborliness include visiting neighbors when they are ill, consoling them at times of sorrow and congratulating them at times of joy, not staring into their house, not staring at what they carry into their house and not looking at their womenfolk, taking care of their family’s needs when they are absent, and forgiving their mistakes. 

Good Relations with Neighbors

The importance of having good relationships with neighbors is sometimes emphasized in general as in the following tradition narrated from Abdullah ibn Amr: “The best of friends, in God’s sight, is the one who is best to his friend; and the best of neighbors, in God’s sight, is the one who is best to his neighbor.” Sometimes very specific aspects of neighbor relationships are pinpointed, but the recommendations do not stop there. We are encouraged not only to have good relations with our neighbors, but also to initiate good deeds. For instance, we are recommended to be the first to greet a neighbor. Kindness to neighbors is always presented as the norm.

In Islam, being good to one’s neighbors encompasses a number of deeds: visiting them, being kind to them in general, and helping them when they need our help. The recommendations even go as far as buying similar things for our neighbors’ children to those we buy for ours. If we are unable to do this, we are discouraged from showing our neighbors’ children what we bought for our children.

Narrated from Aisha, the Prophet said, “Gabriel kept recommending me to treat my neighbor well until I thought that he would tell me to make him one of my heirs.” Abda ibn Ali Lubaba narrates from the Messenger of God: “No deed which harms a neighbor can be regarded as insignificant.”

We should share what we have with our neighbors. Narrated from Abu Dharr the Prophet stated, “Whenever you cook some stew, add extra water to it, then look for some household in your neighborhood and give it to them in kindness.”

In his historic sermon during the Farewell Pilgrimage, in which he summarized the most important points of his teachings, the Prophet did not fail to mention neighbors and emphasized their rights to such an extent that the eminent companion Abu Umama also thought that the Prophet would make neighbors heirs: “I heard the Prophet when he was seated on his she-camel during the Farewell Pilgrimage, saying, ‘I enjoin you to treat your neighbors well,’ and urging their good treatment so much that I thought, he is going to give them the rights of inheritance.”

Christian and Jewish Neighbors in Islam

History bears witness to the fact that Christians and Jews, the “People of the Book”1 as they are called in the Qur’an, have lived alongside Muslims in many regions of the Islamic world, secure in the knowledge that they, their honor, and their wealth were safe, enjoying a good neighborly relationship, with good treatment and freedom of worship. Their ancient churches still exist in Muslim villages clinging to mountaintops, surrounded by Muslim community who upholds the well-being of their Jewish and Christian neighbors. When the Prophet was about to pass on to the next world, he stated: “I place in your trust the People of the Book, the Christians and Jews.” When ‘Umar was in the throes of death due to a dagger wound, he warned: “I place the People of the Book among us in your trust. Fear God regarding them and treat them justly.”

Islam aims at spreading mutual love and affection among neighbors. The ways in which people may achieve this are many, and include attitudes ranging from making sure that your neighbor does not sleep hungry while you sleep well fed, to the exchange of gifts. The Muslim attitude toward neighbors includes wishing for their neighbors what they wish for themselves. It includes the sharing of happiness and sorrow. It prohibits spying on them, gossiping about them, and harming them in any way. Instead it establishes respect for their privacy, and keeping common use areas-such as apartment building entrances, streets and sidewalks-clean. The Prophet also said, “Among the things that bring happiness to a Muslim in this life are a righteous neighbor, a spacious house, and a good steed.”

We have tried to shed some light on the Muslim attitude toward neighbors and the importance of neighbor relationships in Islam. The Islamic tradition in this respect is fairly rich and invites the interested reader to further research. A healthy society can be established only through healthy neighborhoods. Education is the key to instilling healthy attitudes of neighborliness in our children as well as in adults. This concept deserves discussion in the classrooms of public schools as well as in seminars and conferences in universities. This flower should be given to all societies as a gift and love should be shared in the community through knowledge.

Footnote

1. Although ahl al-kitap, “People of the Book,” is commonly considered to be referring to Christians and Jews, Islamic tradition accepts, in general terms, other belief systems like Zoroastrians, Buddhists, or Hindus under the same category, as their major tenets of faith are similar to that of Islam’s.